It's finally here... UFC 60 airs tonight.

What has to be the most highly anticipated and hotly debated Ultimate Fighting Championship event will take place in just a matter of hours... UFC 60 Matt Hughes VS. Royce Gracie.

How much more can be said about a fight between UFC legend Royce Gracie and 8 time welterweight champion Matt Hughes that hasn't already been discussed?

This matchup promises to be a UFC milestone to be sure. If Gracie wins this fight it can only elevate him further in a sport where he is already a legend. If Hughes wins this fight it will cement him as the most prolific welterweight of his time and in UFC history.

Now it's time for my fight prediction, this is going to be tricky but I've given it a lot of thought...

This is going to be a good fight regardless, I believe that Matt is going to press the standup game hard and will stay at arms length to avoid having the fight go to the ground. If Hughes can get in some good shots on Royce and actually hurt him then Gracie is going to lose this fight. Royce does not like to be hit and he does not like to be hurt, nor is he used to experiencing that in a fight.

Royce will attempt to get this fight to the ground as quickly as he can which will be his best bet as that is his best game. Equally deadly on bottom or on top if the fight stays on the ground the edge must go to Gracie.

Ultimately I believe this fight will be called late in the 2nd round or early 3rd round as a TKO win for Matt Hughes.

With all the hoopla surrounding Matt and Royce some great matchups have been lost in the back ground.

Joe Riggs VS. Mike Swick promises to be an entertaining matchup, I think we are going to see a little bit more than 30 or 40 seconds of Swick in this fight against the likes of Riggs.

Another intriguing matchup that I'm looking forward to is Brandon Vera VS. Assuerio Silva. Vera has been on an impressive run and will have his hands full with the hard hitting Silva tonight.

It going to be a great show! 90 minutes to go!

Post fight comments to follow tomorrow.

Mike
(MMA Fanatic)

TUF 3 Ed Herman VS. Danny Abaddi short & sweet.

Finally this week we got to see the whiskey drinking Ed Herman show his stuff in the octagon. Ed finally got his wish this week to have a fight against a team Ortiz member after being "slighted" by Tito when teams were picked.

Representing team Ortiz was the quiet karate instructor Danny Abaddi. Actually turns out Danny is a bit of a talker and story teller as some of the scenes with his housemates show.

Once the fight is made both fighters start making preparations for meeting each other and Danny suffers a low back injury. Danny has to keep leaving the house for therapy appointments and that makes for a lot of speculation among the remaining fighters back at the house.

So now it's fight day and the fight opens up with both guys trading some jabs. Danny catches Ed with a nice right that staggers him Danny then goes into the clinch and they back up to the fence.

Ed gets Danny to the mat within a few moments enters his guard and starts working in some elbows and punches. Danny for the most part is able to defend himself pretty well from the guard and that helps to mitigate Ed's effort somewhat but he is taking damage.

Danny makes a move to roll out from under Ed and leaves his arm wide open. Ed promptly secures it, lays the armbar in deep and Danny quickly taps.

While Ed dominated the fight I certainly didn't see anything in that performance that backs up all the talking he does about how great he is. Perhaps we'll see what Ed really has when he fights next in the semis I'll be interested to see what he can do.

Mike
(MMA Fanatic)

Getting fired up for UFC 60 Hughes vs. Gracie

Like us MMA fans couldn't be anymore stoked and ready for this weekends Ultimate Fighting event when along comes the UFC 60 countdown show. Yes, there will be a preview show on Spike tonight at 10. Don't forget to tune in!

If your like me you'll be pretty fired up after watching an hour highlighting some of the best fights of Matt Hughes and Royce Gracie. Between UFC 60 and 4 day holiday weekend I'm going to be heaven! Thank god my wife likes the UFC and doesn't get pissed by the extra $40 on the cable bill each month.

Mike
(MMA Fanatic)

UFC On Demand beta now available

The Ultimate Fighting Championship has launched it's new beta version of On Demand fights. This is really cool! There is a large selection of fights to browse, individual fights appear to be $1.99 or you can choose the monthly $9.99 option for unlimited DVD quality downloads.

Have a look here: UFC On Demand

Mike
(MMA Fanatic)

IFL Debut, a new era in Mixed Martial Arts?

Just finished watching the International Fight League TV debut on FSN and it was very entertaining. Tonight's match featured Team Anaconda led by Bas Rutten vs. The Silverbacks coached by Pat Miletich.

There were 5 fights on the card for the inaugural event. One of the more notable match ups of the event was Bart Palaszewski vs. John Shackelford in the lightweight category.

Round one went down with Palaszewski pressing the action with good striking and being the aggressor for the entire round. Round 2 opened up with more of the same and as the seconds ticked by I got the clear impression that Shackelford was outmatched by the more experienced Palaszewski.

Palaszewski kept coming on hard and caught Shackelford with a right uppercut followed closely by a left hook that sent Shackelford to the mat for the KO and a win for the Silverbacks.

Another good (and short) fight was between Welterweight fighters Mike Pyle for the Anacondas and Rory Markham for the Silverbacks.

Rory came in strong and had Pyle on the defensive immediately. Markham then landed a nice right hand sending Pyle down, Rory quickly took advantage of the knockdown and commenced pounding Pyle for a moment before the fight was stopped by the referee. Markham and the Silverbacks ended the night with a decisive victory that should have the other team Welteweights thinking.

Overall a great opening event for the International Fight League and team based MMA, I'll definitely be tuning in for more. Stay tuned for more IFL fights on 5-28 & 6-4 set your Tivo's and DVR's!

Mike
(MMA Fanatic)

International Fight League kicks off tonight on FSN

The IFL makes it's TV debut tonight on FSN, 6 pm for those of us on the east coast. See the story here: IFL

I've been looking forward to the start if the International Fight League for a few months now and I hope to see some great fights. It will also be interesting to see how the league format works out as well. Check back later for my post event thoughts and comments.

Mike
(MMA Fanatic)